• Untitled Document

    Join us on March 29rd, 7pm EST

    for the CBEC Virtual Meeting

    All EYO members and followers are welcome to join the fun and get to know the guest speaker!

    See the link below for login credentials and join us!

    March Meeting Info

    (dismiss this notice by hitting 'X', upper right)

Need advice on a 1978 36c

Mack

Junior Member
Hello, I'm new to this site and would like your honest opinion. I'm looking at a 1978 36c and I think I can pick it up for around 10,000. It has been on the hard for 5 years and it looks like it is complete, sails are covered but will need reconditioning. I looked around down below and it looks like some water damage in the headliner, by the mast and also in the bow area port. It has canvas on the wheel (wood, real nice) also the ventilation windows on deck (not sure what you call them) need work. I love the lines and the overall look of this boat. Is it worth it to buy it and refinish it myself? I just retired from teaching and can do most of the work myself. The guy selling it it, knows nothing about it and is selling it since his father passed away. Any information about this boat I would appreciate. I will try to include some pictures soon. Thanks, Mack
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Questions and concerns

Hello, I'm new to this site and would like your honest opinion. I'm looking at a 1978 36c and I think I can pick it up for around 10,000. It has been on the hard for 5 years and it looks like it is complete, sails are covered but will need reconditioning. I looked around down below and it looks like some water damage in the headliner, by the mast and also in the bow area port. It has canvas on the wheel (wood, real nice) also the ventilation windows on deck (not sure what you call them) need work. I love the lines and the overall look of this boat. Is it worth it to buy it and refinish it myself? I just retired from teaching and can do most of the work myself. The guy selling it it, knows nothing about it and is selling it since his father passed away. Any information about this boat I would appreciate. I will try to include some pictures soon. Thanks, Mack

Starting out with the succinct reply from Christian, I would only add that many later-abandoned restorations start out with a narrative similar to this. (Sigh...)

The asking price might be high, given the possible amount of places you would need to spend money and (more importantly, time) before you reach the sailing part that you are visualizing when when you start out on the adventure.

If you are comfortable with woodworking, that's good. If you study some of the blogs on this site and other similar sites where owners have done some major fiberglass repair, you'll see that this is a whole area of learning all by itself. Satisfying work, but it can be frustrating to work away and not be able to see the enticing result until you are about 90% 'done'... :rolleyes:

If I had to hazard a SWAG (scientific wild assed guess) I would say that you would hope to end up with a 40K value boat that might consume 40 or 50K beyond the purchase price. The good news is that like other higher-end boats, the Ericson has some "cred" in the market among knowledgeable buyers. Downside is the scarcity of knowledgeable buyers... they are a small subset of the market in even the best of times.

It's unfair to single out any of your words when there's just your first post to work with, but when you use the work 'reconditioning' for sails I worry. Plan on buying new sails if they are old (or original). The material itself has a lifespan.

The engine will be a major deal -- if it does not pass survey plan on spending 15 or 20K to repower.

If the decks are soft, prepare to put in your labor (after some research) or hire it done ($$).

Rigging will need replacing.

All of this is doable and given quality of the design and underlying quality of the boat, it might indeed be a decent buy.

A thorough survey is the final arbiter. "All will be revealed" as the saying goes. I would get a separate engine survey.

Not trying to be negative, but my personal alarm sounds when I hear that it's been sitting for years. Strictly IMHO, but boats do much worse sitting around than they do being sailed actively.

If you have some pix please do post them up.

Regards,
Loren
 

eknebel

Member III
I second all that Christen and Loren wrote about. Take a real honest look at the boat, bow to stern, multiplying all estimates of time and money by 3(a rule of thumb that seems to work for me). If it still makes sense, hire a hull surveyor, and then an engine surveyor(or in an order that makes sense to you) . Steel yourself to be willing to walk away, or as Loren said, to negotiate the asking price. Congratulations on your recent retirement, you may have enough time to take this on, lucky dog!
 
Last edited:

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
[h=2]Adding Photos to a Forum Message[/h]
1. Initiate "Post New Thread" or "Reply to Thread"

2. Scroll down beneath the message block to "Manage Attachments"
(This opens the File Upload Manager. Notice that any photos you have uploaded previously remain stored here)

3. Select "Add Files" to choose a new photo from your computer.

4. Select "Select File".
(This accesses all the photo files on your personal computer)

5. Double click on the chosen photo. Its name will appear in the "File Upload Manager" pane.

6. Select "Upload File."
The uploaded photo will appear as "Insert Online". Repeat for as many as five photos per message, then select "Done".

7. Select "Preview" to check the result (box is at the lower right-hand corner).

Photos can be repositioned like text in the Editing Pane, by dragging (but not in the Preview Pane).

To remove photos from a post, or substitute them, return to the File Upload Manager. Check the photo displayed and delete it.

The value of the forum photo system is that the site hosts its own pictures--permanently. There are no "dead" photo links after a few years, a shortcoming of colleague sites.

Troubleshooting:

Many uploading issues--sideways pix, pix too large--result from the use of photo-collection organizers like Picasa, which are designed to leave the original photo unchanged. Therefore, "Save" or "Save As" after editing any photo, or the uncorrected original may upload.

Before uploading, locate the chosen photo on your computer. Crop, enhance, and confirm that it is less than 800 pixels and oriented correctly.

A simple way to confirm that the correct photo version uploads is to save it to the desktop and upload from there.

Regarding size: the measurement is in pixels, not KB. For example, 717 x 553. The larger number must be 800 or less. Re-sizing should be easy but can be confounding. In Picasa 3, "resize" is hidden within the Exporting function. In Windows Live Photo Gallery it's Edit/Resize. In iPhoto it's File/Export/Resize.​
<fieldset class="postcontent" style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><legend style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">
paperclip.png
Attached Thumbnails</legend> </fieldset>
 

Mack

Junior Member
Pic

I'm using an iPad mini, I get all the way to done, tap done and nothing!
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    112.9 KB · Views: 85

Mack

Junior Member
Another pic

Another picture, I'm going to take some from above and inside
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    90.8 KB · Views: 88
Top